Trump Says Less Testing = Less Covid. Is He Right?
Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Pundits are having a field day making fun of President Trump's recent comment that less coronavirus testing would probably result in less Covid in the country. They accuse him of doltish behavior and head-in-the-sand thinking. Do they have a point? What are the merits of Trump's assertions? Also in today's program, will the "solution" to bias in social media be worse than the problem itself? Watch today's Liberty Report: Trump Says Less Testing = Less Covid. Is He Right? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
0 Comments
Google has moved against another set of conservative sites. While many have celebrated the action against ZeroHedge and The Federalist, I remain deeply concerned over the free speech implications of such actions. I have written for years about public and private censorship, including recent actions to regulate and control speech on the Internet. Democratic leaders have been calling for censorship on the Internet and in social media for years, a move that will destroy the greatest forum for free speech in the history of the world. Writers have joined in this movement and two such academics recently declared “China was right” all along about censorship. As will come as no surprise to many on this blog, I view this latest action as another form of private censorship that targets conservative sites while ignoring similar rhetoric from the left. I am not very complex when it comes to such conflicts over free speech. I am not as much concerned with the merits of these fights as the implication of targeting some sites over others. I know very little about ZeroHedge while I am familiar with some of the writers on The Federalist. Google has said comparatively little about the reason for barring the sites and what NBC originally reported has been contradicted by the company. However, it is the explanation given for the action taken against the Federalist that I wanted to address. It seems to follow the pattern of politically biased, content-based discrimination against conservative sites by companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Despite the clear bias shown in these actions, most academics are either applauding the crackdown or remaining conspicuously silent as companies silence those with opposing or unpopular views. NBC News reported yesterday that ZeroHedge andThe Federalist were banned from generating revenue through Google Ads. This demonetization of sites is a favorite tool for critics to shutdown writers or sites with opposing views. Google holds a virtual monopoly on such ad revenue (by some estimates over 70 percent of such revenue). Many groups recognized years ago that they could achieve a form of private censorship by getting Google, Twitter, and other companies to effectively cut off the ability of readers to see opposing views. For those of us who are part of the dinosaur class on free speech, the solution to bad speech should be more and better speech — rather than preventing others from hearing or reading opposing views. The NBC reporter Adele-Momoko Fraser broke the story which ncorrectly stated that both sites were demonetized. The Federalist was not demonetized but warning that it might be demonetized unless it changed its site to meet Google’s demands. In fairness to Fraser, some have claimed that she got the story wrong. However, NBC has quoted a Google spokesperson as saying “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.” Google later clarified that it was forcing The Federalist to meet its demands. In her reporting, Fraser characterized both sites a “far right.” Again, I am not that familiar with the sites but “far right” or “alt right” has become a ubiquitous label for sites that liberals or Democrats despise. There are virtually no comparable references to “far left” or “alt left” sites that routinely run conspiracy theories about Republicans or raw hateful statements against conservative figures like the Daily Kos and other sites. Here is what Google noted about the Federalist action. The Federalist published an article claiming the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests, which were both included in the report sent to Google.This is a common view held by both conservative politicians and writers today. Indeed, it often seems that you have to turn to Fox to check on the rioting and turn to CNN to check on the protesting. While one side claims that the rioting is being ignored, the other is claiming that it is being overblown. This is a legitimate debate over the focus and bias of coverage. For example, Craig Melvin, an MSNBC host and co-anchor of “Today,” tweeted a “guide”that the images “on the ground” are not to be described as rioting but rather “protests.” That and other reporting led too many questioning the disconnect in reporting on peaceful protests with the scenes of burning buildings in the background and the report of hundreds of officers injured during the protests. Then however a new reason for the threat came from Google which objected to its comment section. As we have discussed previously, many sites have eliminated their comments section because of trolls, paid or bot comments, or offensive speech. As one of the larger sites committed to free speech issues, we have resisted this trend to be open a forum for people to express themselves. We have tried to respond to complaints about offensive speech and in relatively few cases we have barred those who engage in such commentary. Because I have teaching and litigation duties, I have to rely on people raising racist or offensive content. However, comment section allow people to express their views and, while I often disagree with comments, I have tried not to censor them. Indeed, I routinely leave comments that insult me or say things that are demonstrably untrue about my past writings or testimony. The reason is that I feel uncomfortable with the role of censoring, particularly when I am the subject of the criticism. Google has demanded that The Federalist remove its comment section because it offended the company’s policy against “dangerous and derogatory content.” The Federalist relented and reportedly eliminated its comment section. The result is the loss of the forum for individuals to exchange their views. The response of Google was an unmistakable message that sites would either comply with its demands or face ruin: “Our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites, and we offer guidance and best practices to publishers on how to comply. As the comment section has now been removed, we consider this matter resolved and no action will be taken.” There is also a concern over the NBC reporting. It was not only incorrect on the facts of the Goggle story but Fraser appeared to erase the line between reporting and advocacy in congratulating groups which target sites on the rights and seemingly celebrating the result. The Federalist complained that NBC did little to seek their view before running the story. Fraser relied on the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit that targets online hate and misinformation. Conservative sites have complained that the group is primarily seeking to shutdown conservative sites by labeling them purveyors of hate, including holding them responsible of comments. As we discussed earlier with regard to Twitter, Google seems to be making the case for not only pushing forward with anti-trust inquiries but stripping it and other companies of immunity protections. Indeed, the Justice Department just announced that it is moving forward with proposals to strip away protections. Google and other companies were given protections under Section 320 because it has claimed to being a neutral supplier of virtual space for people to speak with one another. It is now effectively shutting down sites because they allow others to comment freely on their sites. This biased targeting of sites has led to congressional objections and renewed threats to amend the federal law. Indeed, Google is undermining the support with some of us who viewed protections are fostering free speech values. It is now using its role to stifle and regulate speech, the very antithesis of not just free speech but the federal protections. Reprinted with permission from JonathanTurley.org. Google Targets Conservative Sites In Latest Crackdown Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Four years ago today, on June 15, 2016, a shadowy Internet persona calling itself “Guccifer 2.0” appeared out of nowhere to claim credit for hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee on behalf of WikiLeaks and implicate Russia by dropping “telltale” but synthetically produced Russian “breadcrumbs” in his metadata. Thanks largely to the corporate media, the highly damaging story actually found in those DNC emails — namely, that the DNC had stacked the cards against Bernie Sanders in the party’s 2016 primary— was successfully obscured. The media was the message; and the message was that Russia had used G-2.0 to hack into the DNC, interfering in the November 2016 election to help Donald Trump win. Almost everybody still “knows” that — from the man or woman in the street to the forlorn super sleuth, Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, who actually based indictments of Russian intelligence officers on Guccifer 2.0. Blaming Russia was a magnificent distraction from the start and quickly became the vogue. The soil had already been cultivated for “Russiagate” by Democratic PR gems like Donald Trump “kissing up” to former KGB officer Vladimir Putin and their “bromance” (bromides that former President Barack Obama is still using). Four years ago today, “Russian meddling” was off and running — on steroids — acquiring far more faux-reality than the evanescent Guccifer 2.0 persona is likely to get. Here’s how it went down: 1 — June 12: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced he had “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.” 2 — June 14: DNC contractor CrowdStrike tells the media that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians. 3 — June 15: Guccifer 2.0 arises from nowhere; affirms the DNC/CrowdStrike allegations of the day before; claims responsibility for hacking the DNC; claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that forensic examination shows was deliberately tainted with “Russian fingerprints.” This to “corroborate” claims made by CrowdStrike executives the day before. Adding to other signs of fakery, there is hard evidence that G-2.0 was operating mostly in US time zones and with local settings peculiar to a device configured for use within the US, as Tim Leonard reports here and here.) Leonard is a software developer who started to catalog and archive evidence related to Guccifer 2.0 in 2017 and has issued detailed reports on digital forensic discoveries made by various independent researchers — as well as his own — over the past three years. Leonard points out that WikiLeaks said it did not use any of the emails G2.0 sent it, though it later published similar emails, opening the possibility that whoever created G2.0 knew what WikiLeaks had and sent it duplicates with the Russian fingerprints. As Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) told President Trump in a memorandum of July 24, 2017, titled “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?”: “We do not think that the June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been ready to publish and to ‘show’ that it came from a Russian hack.” We added this about Guccifer 2.0 at the time: “The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original ‘Guccifer 2.0’ material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the ‘hand-picked analysts’ from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the misnomered ‘Intelligence Community’ Assessment dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.” Guccifer 2.0 Seen As a Fraud In our July 24, 2017 memorandum we also told President Trump that independent cyber investigators and VIPS had determined “that the purported ‘hack’ of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider. Information was leaked to implicate Russia. We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.” [Emphasis added.]. Right. Ask the FBI. At this stage, President Trump might have better luck asking Attorney General William Barr, to whom the FBI is accountable — at least in theory. As for Barr, VIPS informed him in a June 5, 2020 memorandum that the head of CrowdStrike had admitted under oath on Dec. 5, 2017 that CrowdStrike has no concrete evidence that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016 were hacked — by Russia or by anyone else. [Emphasis added.] This important revelation has so far escaped attention in the Russia-Russia-Russia “mainstream” media (surprise, surprise, surprise!). Back to the Birth of G-2 It boggles the mind that so few Americans could see Russiagate for the farce it was. Most of the blame, I suppose, rests on a thoroughly complicit Establishment media. Recall: Assange’s announcement on June 12, 2016 that he had Hillary Clinton-related emails came just six weeks before the Democratic convention. I could almost hear the cry go up from the DNC: Houston, We Have a Problem! Here’s how bad the problem for the Democrats was. The DNC emails eventually published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, had been stolen on May 23 and 25. This would have given the DNC time to learn that the stolen material included documents showing how the DNC and Clinton campaign had manipulated the primaries and created a host of other indignities, such that Sanders’ chances of winning the nomination amounted to those of a snowball’s chance in the netherworld. To say this was an embarrassment would be the understatement of 2016. Worse still, given the documentary nature of the emails and WikiLeaks’ enviable track record for accuracy, there would be no way to challenge their authenticity. Nevertheless, with the media in full support of the DNC and Clinton, however, it turned out to be a piece of cake to divert attention from the content of the emails to the “act of war” (per John McCain) that the Russian “cyber attack” was said to represent. The outcome speaks as much to the lack of sophistication on the part of American TV watchers, as it does to the sophistication of the Democrats-media complicity and cover-up. How come so few could figure out what was going down? It was not hard for some experienced observers to sniff a rat. Among the first to speak out was fellow Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence, who immediately saw through the Magnificent Diversion. I do not know if he fancies duck hunting, but he shot the Russiagate canard quite dead — well before the Democratic convention was over. Magnificent Diversion In late July 2016, Lawrence was sickened, as he watched what he immediately recognized as a well planned, highly significant deflection. The Clinton-friendly media was excoriating Russia for “hacking” DNC emails and was glossing over what the emails showed; namely, that the Clinton Dems had pretty much stolen the nomination from Sanders. It was already clear even then that the Democrats, with invaluable help from intelligence leaks and other prepping to the media, had made good use of those six weeks between Assange’s announcement that he had emails “related to Hillary Clinton” and the opening of the convention. The media was primed to castigate the Russians for “hacking,” while taking a prime role in the deflection. It was a liminal event of historic significance, as we now know. The “Magnificent Diversion” worked like a charm — and then it grew like Topsy. Lawrence said he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25 as the Democratic convention began and wrote what follows pretty much “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative. Below is a slightly shortened text of his article: “Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections …A year later Lawrence interviewed several of us VIPS, including our two former NSA technical directors and on Aug. 9, 2017 published an article for The Nation titled, “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.” And so it was. But, sadly, that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate narrative at The Nation at the time. Its staff, seriously struck by the HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, rose up in rebellion. A short time later, there was no more room at The Nation for his independent-minded writing. Reprinted with author's permission from ConsortiumNews.com. How an Internet ‘Persona’ Helped Birth Russiagate Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Big pharma is thrilled today after the FDA has rescinded permission for the emergency use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of Covid-19. This after two "prestigious" medical journals have recently been forced to withdraw publication of articles critical of the use of hydroxychloroquine. The trials cited by the FDA did not include the critical component zinc according to critics, and was thus doomed to fail. That leaves enormously expensive new drugs in trial and the elusive vaccine as the "only way" to end the coronahysteria. Meanwhile states are pushing the idea of a "second wave" and are eyeing another shutdown. Watch today's Liberty Report: Why Is Bill Gates Thrilled? FDA Bans Hydroxychloroquine For Covid! Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Daniel McAdams has written about police on two occasions backing down in their efforts to stop children of a group of families from using playgrounds in Texas that had been designated off limits in the coronavirus crackdown. In those instances, parents discussed the restriction with police, and once with a vice mayor as well, with the police ultimately assenting to the use of the playgrounds. In the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the effort to ensure kids can use the Middleton Playground has played out differently. Catarina Moura and John Annese report at the New York Daily News that people have at least 26 times — the latest on Monday — cut off locks and chains that, in the name of countering coronavirus, have been used to prevent people from accessing a playground. The unfairness of the playground closure, especially in light of giant protests occurring throughout the city in defiance or coronavirus restrictions yet with the approval of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, was expressed well by one person quoted in the Daily News story: Moshi Blum, 32, said the neighborhood’s residents were enraged that their children couldn’t use the playground while thousands of George Floyd protesters could pack together on city streets.Watch here an ABC 7 New York City television report regarding neighborhood residents’ efforts to keep the playground open: Neighborhood Residents Use Bolt Cutters to Open New York City Playground Shut Down in Coronavirus Crackdown Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity
“Revolutions are often seen as spontaneous. It looks like people just went into the street. But it’s the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you reach a certain point, where you can organize mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks.” Foreign Policy Journal Does anyone believe the nationwide riots and looting are a spontaneous reaction to the killing of George Floyd?It’s all too coordinated, too widespread, and too much in-sync with the media narrative that applauds the “mainly peaceful protests” while ignoring the vast destruction to cities across the country. What’s that all about? Do the instigators of these demonstrations want to see our cities reduced to urban wastelands where street gangs and Antifa thugs impose their own harsh justice? That’s where this is headed, isn’t it? Of course there are millions of protesters who honestly believe they’re fighting racial injustice and police brutality. And more power to them. But that certainly doesn’t mean there aren’t hidden agendas driving these outbursts. Quite the contrary. It seems to me that the protest movement is actually the perfect vehicle for affecting dramatic social changes that only serve the interests of elites. For example, who benefits from defunding the police? Not African Americans, that’s for sure. Black neighborhoods need more security not less. And yet, the New York Times lead editorial on Saturday proudly announces, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police–Because reform won’t happen.” Check it out: We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police….There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo.So, according to the Times, the problem isn’t single parent families, or underfunded education or limited job opportunities or fractured neighborhoods, it’s the cops who have nothing to do with any of these problems. Are we supposed to take this seriously, because the editors of the Times certainly do. They’d like us to believe that there is groundswell support for this loony idea, but there isn’t. In a recent poll, more than 60% of those surveyed, oppose the idea of defunding the police. So why would such an unpopular, wacko idea wind up as the headline op-ed in the Saturday edition? Well, because the Times is doing what it always does, advancing the political agenda of the elites who hold the purse-strings and dictate which ideas are promoted and which end up on the cutting room floor. That’s how the system works. Check out this excerpt from an article by Paul Craig Roberts: The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out a family’s lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country undergoing collapse. This is why it is not shown in national media. Some local media show an indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction is only a local occurance… I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts. (“The Real Racists”, Paul Craig Roberts, Unz Review)Roberts makes a good point, and one that’s worth mulling over. Why has the media failed to show the vast destruction of businesses and private property? Why have they minimized the effects of vandalism, looting and arson? Why have they fanned the flames of social unrest from the very beginning, shrugging off the ruin and devastation while cheerleading the demonstrations as a heroic struggle for racial justice? Is this is the same media that supported every bloody war, every foreign intervention, and every color-revolution for the last 5 decades? Are we really expected to believe that they’ve changed their stripes and become an energized proponent of social justice? Nonsense. The media’s role in concealing the damage should only convince skeptics that the protests are just one part of a much larger operation. What we’re seeing play out in over 400 cities across the US, has more to do with toppling Trump and sowing racial division than it does with the killing of George Floyd. The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably involved. We know from evidence uncovered during the Russiagate probe, that the media works hand-in-glove with the Intel agencies and FBI while–at the same time– serving as a mouthpiece for elites. That hasn’t changed, in fact, it’s gotten even worse. The uniformity of the coverage suggests that that same perception management strategy is being employed here as well. Even at this late date, the determination to remove Trump from office is as strong as ever even though, in the present case, it has been combined with the broader political strategy of inciting fratricidal violence, obliterating urban areas, and spreading anarchy across the country. This isn’t about racial justice or police brutality, it’s about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law. Take a look at this article at The Herland Report: What the Black Lives Matter movement does not understand is that they are being used by the billionaire white capitalists who are fighting to push the working class even lower and end the national sovereignty principles that president Trump stands for in America….That sounds about right to me. The protests are merely a fig leaf for a “color revolution” that bears a striking resemblance to the more than 50 CIA-backed coups launched on foreign governments in the last 70 years. Have the chickens have come home to roost? It certainly looks like it. Here’s more from the same article: Use a grievance that the local population has against the system, identify and support those who oppose the current government, infiltrate and strengthen opposition movements, fund them with millions of dollars, organize protests that seem legitimate and have paid political instigators dress up in regular clothes to blend in.So, yes, the grievances are real, but that doesn’t mean that someone else is not steering the action. And just as the media is shaping the narrative for its own purposes, so too, there are agents within the movement that are inciting the violence. All of this suggests the existence of some form of command-control that provides logistical support and assists in communications. Check out this excerpt from a post at Colonel Pat Lang’s website Sic Semper Tyrannis: The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive. They can move people around the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick, 55 gallon new trash cans of frozen water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a well thought out distribution pattern. Who pays for this? Who plans this? Who coordinates these plans and gives 'execute orders?'Colonel Lang is not the only one to marvel at Antifa’s “logistical capabilities”. The United States has never experienced two weeks of sustained protests in hundreds of its cities at the same time. It’s beyond suspicious, it points to extensive coordination with groups across the country, a comprehensive media strategy (that probably preceded the killing of George Floyd), a sizable presence on social media (to put people on the street), and agents provocateur whose task is to incite violence, loot and create mayhem. None of this has anything to do with racial justice or police brutality. America is being destabilized and sacked for other purposes altogether. This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA’s color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose “shock therapy” on the economy pushing tens of millions of Americans into homelessness and destitution, and leave behind a broken, smoldering shell of a country easily controlled by Federal shock troops and wealthy globalist mandarins. Here’s a short excerpt from an article by Kurt Nimmo at his excellent blog “Another Day in the Empire”: The BLM represents the forefront of an effort to divide Americans along racial and political lines, thus keeping race and identity-based barbarians safely away from more critical issues of importance to the elite, most crucially a free hand to plunder and ransack natural resources, minerals, crude oil, and impoverish billions of people whom the ruling elite consider unproductive useless eaters and a hindrance to the drive to dominate, steal, and murder….The protest movement is the mask that conceals the maneuvering of elites. The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself. Having succeeded in using the Lockdown to push the economy into severe recession, the globalists are now inciting a fratricidal war that will weaken the opposition and prepare the country for a new authoritarian order. Reprinted with permission from Unz.com. Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
While tens of millions of Americans have seen their jobs disappear due to the "stay-at-home" coronavirus shutdown, the military contractor industry is moving to grab tens of billions to reimburse workers put on leave during the crisis. The actual private sector may never recover, but the military-industrial complex is eager to get back to the "old normal" of massive spending on an unsustainable US global military empire. Watch today's Liberty Report: Business As Usual? Pentagon To Bail Out Covid-Affected Military Contractors! Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Just a week or so ago the mainstream media and thousands representing the “medical community” told us we must throw out the “stay-at-home” orders and go to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police. The Covid-19 virus will not bother people who are protesting this injustice, they said. The virus only attacks people leaving their homes to protest the stay-at-home orders. Now, after thousands of businesses – many of them black-owned – have been reduced to rubble and innocent people in the inner cities no longer have anywhere to shop for the basic necessities of life, the mainstream media has backed off of its non-stop coverage of the protests. Suddenly last week they all simultaneously embraced a new fear story to terrify the masses: a “second wave” of coronavirus was among us. It was targeting those states that dared to “open up” their economies and begin a return to relatively normal lives. Texas, Florida, and California were singled out to scare the rest of the country into thinking that if you dare leave your homes you will catch coronavirus and die. There was a “spike” in coronavirus “cases” they claimed. Funny, just a month or so ago they were demanding that we massively increase testing, which would produce just that “spike” in coronavirus cases they are now using to scare authorities into reinstating the incredibly destructive stay-at-home orders. In the county here in Texas that includes Houston, the young judge who somehow seized the power to shut down the third largest city in the United States warns us that she may again shut down Fort Bend County to fight this “second wave” of cases. She even threatened to again pour millions of dollars into a “field hospital” at a Houston football stadium that did not see a single patient in the “first wave” of coronavirus. It’s hard not to wonder which politically-connected companies are reaping millions in contracts for an obviously un-needed hospital. Thousands of hospital beds in Houston are vacant, while cancer patients have been refused their screenings and desperately needed treatments. As former Congressman David Stockman points out, the actual coronavirus numbers do not in any way support the media assertion that a “second wave” of infection is cresting over Texas. Stockman informs us that in Texas the “reported infected case rate of 256 per 100,000 is just 10 percent of the real ‘hot spot’ rate of 2,477 per 100,000 in the five boroughs of New York City; and its mortality rate of 6.2 per 100,000 population is just 3 percent of New York City’s 196 per 100,000 rate.” There are no “hot spots” in Texas. It’s just more media hype. It’s funny that they don’t dare mention Georgia, which has also opened its economy and has seen no “spike” at all. The same people who were demanding more testing are now screaming that we must shut the economy down again because these tests – which are notoriously unreliable – are showing more coronavirus cases. This is a disease that 99.9 percent of the people who are infected with survive! But 40 million people out of work and the thousands of lives that will end due to the shutdown are never mentioned. There is something else going on here and it is in no way related to public health. Is The ‘Second Wave’ Another Coronavirus Hoax? Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
Sometimes a video can communicate important political ideas very well and quickly. That is the case with the two-minute video “No New Normal” at the Essential People YouTube page. Starting off, it seems as if the video, like many others, is promoting that people make all sorts of sacrifices, changing their lives drastically and painfully, to counter coronavirus. Then, the video takes a quick turn, harshly criticizing the coronavirus crackdown and the “new normal” of dystopian restrictions on human actions that people in government and media often assert must persist. At the same time, the video denounces Bill Gates who has been a prominent backer of the crackdown and promoter of the “new normal.” The video also provides a haunting visual demonstration of the dehumanizing nature of the masks and other face coverings that some governments and businesses are mandating people wear. The video was posted in April, before a much increased recognition that coronavirus is way less threatening to most people than proclaimed through the imposing of coronavirus restrictions in America and before the United States, state, and local governments began their much-touted ramping down of their coronavirus crackdowns. Yet, unfortunately, the video still very much addresses the current state of intense restrictions in America and the continued ominous talk of subjecting people to a “new normal” forever. Much of the ramp-down has been glacial in pace. It has also been accompanied by the introduction and expansion of attacks on liberty in the name of countering coronavirus, such as surveillance programs termed “contract tracing” and mandates that people wear masks. Meanwhile, some politicians are working hard to ensure a significant portion of restrictions enacted in the name of countering coronavirus stick around no matter what. Plus, there is the persistent threat of starting a new round of full-out crackdowns to deal with a “second wave” of coronavirus, another disease, or some other future “emergency.” The lyrics in the song played in the video say, “wake me up when it’s all over.” Unfortunately, there are people, including in government and the media, who want to make sure the precoronavirus “old normal” never returns. Watch the video here: Saying No to the ‘New Normal’ Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute Anyone who still doubts that woke progressives can pose a material threat to the pursuit of truth should consider the case of David Shor. A week ago, as protests over the unjust police killing of George Floyd took place in major cities across the country, Shor—a 28-year-old political scientist at the Democratic consulting firm Civic Analytics—tweeted some observations about the successes and failures of various movements. He shared research by Princeton University's Omar Wasow, who has found that violent protests often backfire whereas nonviolent protests are far more likely to succeed. The impulse Shor's tweet was a perfectly liberal one: He feels progressive reforms are more palatable to the public when protesters eschew violence. But many progressive activists on social media didn't care whether the impulse was liberal, or even whether it reflected reality. They denounced Shor as a racist for daring to scrutinize the protesters, even if his aim was to make them more effective. One activist accused Shor of using his "anxiety and 'intellect' as a vehicle for anti-blackness." Then she tagged Civic Analytics, and invited the company to "come get your boy." Get him, they did. Civic Analytics promptly fired Shor. Liberal writer Jonathan Chait blames Shor's firing on "the spread of distinct, illiberal norms throughout some progressive institutions over the last half-dozen years." Chait knows what he's talking about: In 2015, he wrote an influential New York article titled "Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say: How the language police are perverting liberalism." Chait defined political correctness as "a style of politics in which the more radical members of the left attempt to regulate political discourse by defining opposing views as bigoted and illegitimate," and he arged that "the new p.c. has attained an influence over mainstream journalism and commentary beyond that of the old." To understand why the "new p.c." attained that influence, it's necessary to revisit another influential magazine article from the same year: "The Coddling of the American Mind," an Atlantic essay penned by the social scientist Jonathan Haidt and the civil libertarian attorney Greg Lukianoff. Their article was later expanded into a book, in which Haidt and Lukianoff blamed an increase in "safetyism"—an impulse to be sheltered not just from physical harm but emotional turmoil—for some of the new hostility to free speech. Their thinking has deeply informed my own writings about the censorious streak in campus activism: In my decade or so of covering higher education, I've reported hundreds of examples of progressive students citing their personal sense of safety as the reason they were demanding that punitive actions be taken against some other individual or entity that had offended them. While some critics have dismissed the idea that the antics of safety-obsessed college students matter very much to the broader culture, I've long warned that the small number—proportionally speaking—of young people inclined toward these tactics could do serious damage elsewhere. As I wrote in my book Panic Attack, "It's not impossible to imagine the same kind of thing happening in the workplace: picture a boss who is afraid to reprimand negligent young employees out of concern that they will say their PTSD is triggered." Recent events at The New York Times are an almost perfect demonstration of how this is playing out. Staffers angry about an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) claimed that its publication threatened their very lives. They specifically chose "running this puts black Times staff in danger" as their mantra because it invokes workplace safety. When the authority figure—the boss, the principal, the government—is responsible for ensuring safety, and safety is broadly defined as not merely protection from literal physical violence but also the fostering of emotional comfort, classical liberal norms of classical liberalism will suffer. (One activist told me that for him, safety requires other people to affirm him.) The Times conflict ended with opinion page chief James Bennet out of his job. He's not the only one. UCLA recently suspended a lecturer, Gordon Klein, after he declined a demand that he make a final exam "no-harm"—that is, it could only boost grades—for students of color traumatized by the events in Minneapolis. Klein refused, in accordance with guidance from UCLA's administration not to give students much leeway on exams. In response, the activists launched a change.org petition to get Klein fired, and the school suspended him. His irritated reply to the activists—that he would not give preferential exam treatment to students because of their skin color—has prompted UCLA to investigate him for racial discrimination. University of Chicago economist Harald Uhlig, who had the temerity to criticize some of the more radical demands the protesters have made, is now being pressured to resign as editor of the school's Journal of Political Economy. In this case, it's not random students doing the pressuring, but some of the biggest names in economics: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers, and even former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who told the Times that "it would be appropriate for the University of Chicago, which is the publisher of the Journal of Political Economy, to review Uhlig's performance and suitability to continue as editor." The Times article is a master class in guilt-by-insinuation. The authors could not find a single fact to support the notion that Uhlig is a racist or that he has used his position to thwart black scholars. But he holds some views that would be in conflict with the more progressive Black Lives Matter protesters—he doesn't approve of rioting, and he criticized NFL players for kneeling—and that apparently is suspicious enough. Chait's piece on Shor includes another, equally powerful example: Intercept journalist Lee Fang, a man of the left by any measure, was denounced as a racist and publicly shamed by a colleague for daring to interview a black protester who criticized violent tactics. Fair Use Excerpt. Read the whole article here. The 1793 Project Unmasked Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute |
Ron Paul
|